A year ago there were many who argued that Donald Trump should not be the Republican nominee in 2024 as he was too polarizing, he could not possibly win and would also hurt GOP chances to retake the Senate.
This is what I wrote in a blog post in April, 2023 titled, "Hobson's Choice".
It goes without saying Trump is a polarizing figure.
Many love him but many cannot stand him.
It is also undoubtedly true that Trump has a unique ability to attract many voters who are otherwise disaffected from politics.
The question that remains is whether the numbers of those voters outnumber those who he turns off?
The election results in 2024 may be decided on that answer.
Last week we got the answer.
Those results also made clear that there is no Republican in existence today that can match the ability to turnout and energize voters in the same way that Donald Trump can.
In that same blog post I also reiterated my belief that Trump was more likely to win the primary election vote and be on the general election ballot than Biden.
Right now I actually believe that it is more likely that Donald Trump will be on the general election ballot than Joe Biden.
Trump clearly carries a lot of baggage but his support among Republicans has solidified over the last few months as it appears that he has been unfairly targeted by the FBI in the documents controversy and in the the New York indictment.
Trump only had a margin of 11 points over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis among potential GOP primary voters in January. He now is up 37 points over DeSantis.
Yes, DeSantis has not formally announced he is running yet but Trump has clearly strengthened his position since the beginning of the year compared to DeSantis.
I also continue to believe that the worse matters get in the United States with Biden at the helm the better Donald Trump looks to voters.
Let's look at some data that shows the electoral strength of Donald Trump.
Despite all that Trump has been through over the last eight years, his vote totals only went in one direction---UP---despite all the efforts that have been made by the media and political establishment to diminish and denigrate him over that time.
In addition, while Trump has now exceeded his vote total from 2020 by about 1 million votes, Kamala Harris is running about 10 million fewer votes than Joe Biden received four years ago---71.8 million vs. Biden's 81.3 million.
The real power of the Trump political brand is seen by comparing the votes for Trump to the Republican candidates for Senate in various states.
Let's look at a dozen high profile states that were either considered battleground states and/or had highly contested Senate races.
Six of these states were won by Democrat Senate candidates. Six were won by the Republican Senate candidates.
In every one of these states Trump's margin in the state was better than the Republican candidate.
For example, in Minnesota, Trump only lost by 4.2 points but the Republican candidate for Senate lost to incumbent Amy Klobuchar by 15.8 points. Trump's margin was 11.6 points better.
In Montana, Tim Sheehy won by 7.4 points over incumbent Jon Tester. However, Trump won the state by 20.1 points over Harris, a 12.7 better point margin than Sheehy had.
However, Trump also ran 13.7 points better than incumbent Republican Senator Deb Fischer in Nebraska and 5.2 points better than two-term Senator Ted Cruz in Texas.
Trump ran 7.8 points better than Kari Lake in Arizona and 7.5 points better than Bernie Moreno in Ohio.
In these 12 states, Trump outperformed the Republican Senatorial candidate by an average margin of 6.2 points.
The experts that argued that Trump would lose and be a disaster for the Republican party could not have been more wrong.
Those that got it right were the Republican primary voters who were smarter than the experts.
A big reason for this was Trump's ability to turnout those disaffected voters.
There is little question that Trump is "The Titan of Turnout".
It is also interesting to take another look at the voter shifts between 2020 and 2024.
The graph below is based on the AP Vote Cast exit poll data.
This is a data set and differs somewhat from the CNN exit poll I referenced in my "Election Data Dump" post last week,
Based on this data, you could also refer to Trump as "The Sultan of Shift".
Trump shifted large groups of minorities and younger voters to his side between 2020 and 2024 led by Black and Latino men and 18-29 age voters of all races.
The AP vote cast data shows that Trump gained 25 points with Black men, 21 points with 18-29 age voters and 19 points with Latino men.
However, he also saw significant gains with women, especially minority and single women.
Trump gained 12 points with Latino women, 7 points with white college women, 7 points with single women , 6 points with Black women and 3 points with married women
The only groups he was steady with or lost just a few points were older white voters that generally lived in urban areas with post-graduate degrees.
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| Credit: https://x.com/PatrickRuffini/status/1856315105589293101 (click to enlarge) |
Trump won the election with the turnout of votes of groups that the Kamala Harris campaign argued were going to be victims of an oppressive racist, xenophobic, misogynistic Trump agenda.
Trump fared worse compared to 2020 with what is supposed to be the privileged, older white patriarchy that the Democrats continue to argue is engaged in systemic oppression in this society.
It seems that there were many voters who did not buy what Kamala Harris and the Democrats were selling.
There might be another lesson in all of this as well.
Donald Trump will assume office next year more popular and with greater broad-based support than in either of his other elections.
This is despite repeated efforts over the last decade to marginalize him, mute him, impeach him, bankrupt him and jail him.
This post on X provides just a few examples of how massive the effort was to undermine Trump.
At times it is difficult to remember all that Trump has had to endure.
Trump escaped all of these efforts to trap and thwart him like a modern-day Houdini.
It may be time to stop underestimating Donald J. Trump and find out what he can accomplish without constantly being harassed.
I would like to find out.
How about you?
Scott, a good piece. The one statistic I would really like to see is this: With the Great Migration that occurred during the Pandemic, how many Democrat votes were cancelled-out because the voters relocated to rural and/or Republican-leaning districts where the Dems were simply out-numbered. For example, Californians that relocated to South Carolina, or New Yorkers that relocated to Florida. My ballpark estimate is that it gave Trump at least a two percent advantage. That's 1,500,000 votes. And if the districts from which the Dems departed received less blue votes, that might explain Trump's gains in places like New York. The greatest unforeseen consequence of the Pandemic and the Great Migration wasn't epic inflation and supply chain snafus. It was Trump's victory.
ReplyDeleteMost of the data I have seen suggest that Republican voters, more than Democrats, were more likely to leave states like California and New York for states like Texas and Florida. This may have increased Trump margins in those states. However, that would then suggest than California and New York should be more blue.That did not occur. In fact, those states shifted more to Trump than Texas and Florida. Even very red states such as South Carolina, even with New York transplants, shifted significantly red. In fact, the latest data shows that every state shifted toward Trump compared to 2020. That includes Utah which early returns indicated might have stayed the same or shifted slightly left.The final numbers show that all states shifted to Trump.
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line--the data does not suggest that the Great Migration had any effect on the vote that I can see.
Absolutely amazing!
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